They were so close, forehead to forehead, and it made Cyrus feel small compared to the older man. He squirmed. Think on his hurt? Why? Hadn’t that been his entire existence for the past two years? Locked up in a castle that no longer belonged to his family, occasionally paraded about to remind the populace that the Everlorn Empire held him hostage as they worked to erase every shred of Thanet’s religion and culture. Ordered to put on a smile and offer a brave face to a beleaguered populace.

Eyes closed, he knew what best represented that hurt. It wasn’t a prayer, not in any way he understood it, but it was a memory. His mother and father, smiling and happy as they ate a meal together in the royal garden. He remembered the way the light made his mother’s brown hair sparkle. He remembered, not the joke itself, but that his father had said something amusing now lost to time, and it had sent young Cyrus rolling with laughter atop the recently cut grass. The happiness of it was a knife across his raw mind, but it was the truest version of his hurt, and the world he lamented, forever lost.

“I was right, you aren’t broken,” Thorda whispered. Cyrus opened his eyes, but his master’s were still closed. Even his breath somehow smelled of the forge, and made Cyrus think of melting steel. “But you are wounded, child. So deeply wounded. There is a part of you that you refuse to acknowledge. A part of yourself that frightens you. It rots your soul. It denies you peace. My training will break you, and one night you will slip out when I am not here to stop you. So look inside, Cyrus. Face your truth, and give it a voice. I am listening. I, and I alone.”

Cyrus pulled away from the older man, and he pushed himself to his feet. His emotions roiled within him, bubbling, scraping at the edges of his mind. What was in him? What had he suppressed during those two years of imprisonment?

But of course he knew. He knew it when he had been dragged through the halls of the castle by the Usurper King. He knew it by his nightmares.

“I’m scared,” he said. “I’m so scared, and if I’m this scared, I can’t be… there isn’t any way. I can’t be the hero you need, or this island needs. How could I be?”

Thorda leaned closer, and he shook his head.

“No, Cyrus. You’re not scared. You only believe it is fear, for you were never allowed to act on it. You let it swallow you in your helplessness. But you aren’t helpless anymore. Think again. Live it again. What is it you truly feel?”